Overlord (3 page)

It took thirty minutes to reach their mysterious destination. The van pulled off to the side of a barren road and allowed three of the Toyotas to pull up to the gate surrounding the compound. Three men exited the first vehicle and confronted the uniformed guards at the gate. The small man in the Mercedes watched as the very last of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi’s loyal Army members were rounded up at gunpoint. Again the young man shook his head in disbelief as the guards would no doubt be shot at the new regime’s earliest convenience.

The young student was beginning to think the revolution was taking on an air of desperation. Many of his fellow intellectuals were as concerned as he. For the moment there was nothing he could do about it. Someday the religious fools would find that the enemy was not within the Iranian state borders, but outside of it.

The man and his roommate had been awoken and taken from their small apartment with no apology and told they were to accompany the armed men on a most secretive trip to the outskirts of the city. The young man had been up most of the night studying and was not pleased with being taken from his bed. He glanced at his friend in the backseat and shook his head once more.

“If they wanted to shoot us would they have taken us all the way out into the middle of nowhere?” his friend asked.

“No, I believe if we threatened them in any way they would just walk into our apartment and shoot us there. No, this is something else. Now relax, worrying about it won’t change our fate.”

His roommate leaned over and whispered, “They have no compunction about shooting anyone they see as a threat. I’ve noticed of late quite a few of our forward-thinking friends have suddenly decided to take the short road out of town.” The young bearded man looked through the tinted window. “And this is a short road out of town.”

The large double-door security gate was finally opened and three of the guards from the first three Toyotas were left behind as the new security for the state-run facility. The Mercedes drew past following the van and the man’s eyes locked with the guard that held the gate open. He looked like a brute and a ruthless killer from the old days of the Persian Empire. The black beard framed a face that seemed to be full of hatred.

“All I know is that if they don’t get the citizenry under control inside the cities we will have no cities left.” The young man faced his friend and fellow student. “They need to stop the destructive ways of the people. The fools just don’t realize they have won.”

He stopped speaking when he saw the driver of the Mercedes looking at him in the rearview mirror.

As the two vehicles with their escort rounded a bend in the road the two men riding in the backseat saw the building for the first time. It was block shaped and looked nothing like one of the expensive structures that the shah had erected in the past several years. This was functional and any student with a brain could see that this small, ugly facility was military in nature. The Mercedes pulled into the parking area and the motor was shut off. As the tired young man reached for the door handle the driver turned and shook his head.

“You are instructed to wait.”

The boy swallowed and released the door’s handle. He then watched the white van as a small squad of men exited the rear doors and spread out. Several of those dark eyes were on them. They watched as the right-side sliding door was opened and a small box was placed on the ground. A black-shoed foot exited the van and before they knew what they were witnessing, a tall, thin man stepped quickly up to the door and assisted an elderly man out. The black turban and silver beard with its black streaks were immediately recognizable. The black cleric robe framed the thick, dark, and unforgiving brows as the old man was steadied as he stepped into the night.

“Praise be to God,” the young student mumbled as he watched the older man.

The cleric’s eyes roamed over the building. Soon other clerics were surrounding the man as he moved toward the glass-fronted building. Suddenly the tall man in the black turban stopped and slowly turned toward the Mercedes. He nodded in that direction and both men in the backseat froze as they knew the most famous man in the known world at that time was referencing them.

“I knew we shouldn’t have written that paper on the technological aspect of our relationship with the west. We should have condemned it.” The student turned and faced his slightly older partner, but the man was enraptured as he studied the man surrounded by the black-clad clerics.

“This is about something else,” the clean-shaven one mumbled.

“You may exit the car, but do not approach the party until you are called on to do so. Any move toward the group will be met with extreme force.”

The man didn’t even hear the threat as he opened the car’s door and stepped out. He stopped and made eye contact with the man centered in the circle. The long gray and black beard was recognizable in any corner of the world as his face had been on television screens across the planet for months. The two students fell in line as the front doors of the blockhouse were opened by men and women in white lab coats.

The large group accompanying Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini entered the most secure and top secret facility in all of the Middle East.

*   *   *

The silent group entered a lift that could hold no less than a hundred men. The ayatollah stared straight ahead at the gate in front of him as his advisors spoke in low whispers. The tall man raised his left brow and then turned and faced the two students behind him. The eyes of his advisors followed suit.

“May God grant you favor,” he said in Farsi as he faced the young, clean-shaven man.

“God is great,” the student said as his throat almost seized as the ayatollah held his gaze upon him.

“You are enrolled at Iran University of Science and Technology?” the ayatollah asked with a barely audible voice.

“Yes, we are in our third year of study.”

A man dressed in a white shirt buttoned to the throat and wearing thick glasses faced the two students.

“You are first in your class. I believe your instructors”—he paused and turned to face the ayatollah—“Westerners for the most part”—then he turned back to the two frightened men—“have pegged you as a future leader in the field of high energy.”

The young man listened but made no comment. Why should he, he thought. They seemed to know all anyway.

“I am not in the same classes as my friend. I am in the field of agriculture,” the younger of the two men braved.

The ayatollah lowered his head, not commenting on the statement from the young man’s roommate.

The elevator stopped at its lowest level. The gate was raised and they were met by two men also attired in white coats. The group stepped out onto a bare concrete floor. The man in the white shirt and glasses paused at the entrance and held the younger of the two students back. He nodded with his head that the older of the two should follow the group.

“As it stands, agriculture is not the lesson we seek here tonight, so this is where your journey ends. It was our mistake in assuming you worked with this young man and Professor Azeri.” The man pulled the door down and the two students were left looking at each other through the wire-mesh gate. The student inside the lift looked scared.

“Where are you taking him?” the older asked as the elevator started to rise.

“Back to your apartment, of course.”

The lift continued to rise. He waited until a hand fell on his shoulder and he turned to face the large man, who gestured that he should follow.

“Where are they taking my friend?” he insisted, not trusting the provided answer of a moment before. This time he asked with a little more force as he was taken by the arm and hurried along a winding corridor made of cinder block.

The man didn’t answer a second time. He stepped up to a large door and before the student could ask his question again the steel door slid into the frame and he was unceremoniously nudged forward. The door slid closed behind him.

The room was massive. The small group was situated high up on a catwalk. Newly returned from exile, Ayatollah Khomeini was a few feet away and looking far down into the interior of the room. His arms were folded at his waist with the hands hidden inside the sleeves of his black robes. The student finally realized they were on a viewing platform. When he moved away from the ayatollah he slowly stepped forward and looked down. His eyes widened when he saw the object that was in view of all of the clerics. It was no less than two hundred feet in diameter and at least a story tall in height. It was round and silver in color. There were no identifying marks on its slick skin and the thing looked as if it had been built the day before. Spotlights shined off the skin, giving it an almost heavenly appearance. When he looked back at the ayatollah he noticed the man didn’t see the object as heaven-sent at all. The dark eyes were closed in prayer.

Khomeini slowly opened his eyes and then turned and faced the young man without saying a word. The young student finally tore his gaze from his new leader and then faced the object far below once again.

The flying saucer was the most amazing thing he had ever been witness to.

Khomeini watched the amazement as it grew in the young student’s face. The new national leader narrowed his eyes and continued to watch the boy’s reaction.

The young man was pulled aside abruptly by shaking hands. When he saw who had broken his spell of wonder, he was shocked. It was Professor Azeri. The man was in a state. He was sweating and his beard looked twisted and dirty. His lab coat was askew on his slight frame. He removed his wire-rimmed glasses and looked him in the eye.

“You have a million apologies from me for getting you involved in this. Someday I hope you can forgive me.”

“Professor, what is all of this?” The student couldn’t help it—he moved his gaze away from the rattled older professor and once more looked down upon the saucer. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

The sixty-five-year-old professor stepped up beside his best student and replaced his glasses.

“How could I tell you I was working on a special project for the shah?” He leaned in closer to him and whispered, “Isn’t my execution enough? I didn’t want you involved.” He shook his head, “And now I’ve involved you anyway.” The professor closed his mouth and suddenly froze when he noticed the man in the black suit and half-collared white shirt watching them from the opposite side of the viewing platform, far away from the clerics. The eyes seemed to glow in the darkness.

“Who is that man?” his student asked as he too noticed the medium-sized man with the well-trimmed beard.

“I pray you never find out, my boy.” Azeri faced him and sadly looked past his shoulder at the ayatollah as the man in turn was watching him. “At least as well as I will soon come to know him.”

His student was about to ask about the strange statement when he saw that Khomeini was slowly walking toward them. His clerics and guards stayed behind. He approached and both student and teacher lowered their heads. The ayatollah placed his hands on top of their heads. Then he used his fingers to gently raise their faces toward his own.

“The demon known as Shah Pahlavi wanted to use this apparatus that was unearthed in the desert?”

The professor swallowed and tried to speak.

“I have heard the tale, but from mouths that are unlearned in this area. Perhaps you can enlighten the unworthy?”

The boy looked at his professor and thought the man was going to have a stroke before he could hear the story that he himself wanted desperately to understand.

“The incident…” Azeri paused as he tried to recall the details. “The incident occurred over southern Soviet airspace in 1972. Their border defenses scrambled fighter planes to assist in identifying an object that refused all transmission with ground stations.” The professor seemed to relax as he started to remember the event. “Our own air force, that is, the shah’s air force, tracked the object that was heading for our northern border. The thought was that the Soviets would get to it first, but then the pursuing Russian aircraft vanished from the radar screens of both countries at the same moment.”

The ayatollah closed his eyes as he listened. The young man was hoping the old cleric hadn’t dozed off as it seemed the professor was relating chapters from a bad science fiction novel.

“Soon the object passed over our northern and joint border with the Soviet Union. The path brought it into one of the most heavily trafficked air zones in Iran. The air force watched as the object”—he turned and looked at the saucer—“collided with a commercial 727. Everyone onboard the airliner was killed instantly but this object survived. Its crewmen were never found. It was assumed it may have been a drone of some kind. We are still not sure of that.”

“A drone?” Khomeini asked as his eyes opened and took in the old professor.

“Yes, unmanned.”

“A mindless demon, you mean?”

“Uh, yes, that is a drone. Well, I was contacted as the only man inside Iran who could possibly understand the technology involved … that is, without asking our allies at the time, the Americans, for assistance, of which the shah … Excuse me.” He looked up into the stark features and swallowed as he corrected himself. “The Satan Pahlavi would not do. You see, he wanted the technology to stay inside our borders.”

“Yes, I would imagine this object would interest that fool beyond measure.”

Both men watched the ayatollah turn away and then he gestured the stranger from across the way to come forward into the weak lighting. He spoke in whispers to the dark man, who stood a full head taller than Khomeini. The stranger nodded several times and then looked over at the two waiting academics. Ayatollah Khomeini tiredly turned back to face Professor Azeri and his prized student. He didn’t smile; he didn’t even look as if the two men interested him in the least. He looked at them with raised brow that hooded his dark eyes.

“Do you believe in the greatness of God?” he asked as his eyes bore into theirs.

“Yes,” both mumbled humbly.

“This…” He turned and gestured toward the railing of the platform and the flying saucer beyond. “This apparatus must be destroyed and its mechanics scattered to the sands of our most barren lands. I will not start our world with this … this thing of the shah. I wish it burned to nothing.”